Chapter 1
BE THOU MADE WHOLE
Charles Fillmore
Jesus Christ Heals
JESUS SAW in Himself the perfect pattern of the God-Mind. He lived so close
to that pattern that He became its perfect expression. As He continued to live
closer and ever closer to God He beheld all men as living inventions of God, and
through His spiritualized mentality awakened the image of the perfect pattern of
the God-Mind in those who came to Him for help. Thus by arousing their souls'
energy to such an extent that the physical became immersed in the healing life
He enabled the perfect man to come into manifestation.
For example, when Jesus said in a loud voice to the spiritual man in the
sleeping Lazarus who had been in the tomb four days, "Lazarus, come forth," the
power of the Word in His voice aroused the spiritual man in Lazarus, who in turn
awakened his soul to activity. Then the soul life in Lazarus resurrected and
restored the seeming dead body, and Lazarus arose and walked out of the tomb.
The more enlightened man becomes the greater is his desire for perfect
health. This is logical, for to be healthy is natural. It is a state of being
sound or whole in mind, body, and soul. To heal then is to bring forth the
perfect Christ man that exists within each of us.
There is quite a bit of misunderstanding on the part of both Christians and
non-Christians with regard to the meaning of the words Christ and Jesus, and
their use as applied to Jesus of Nazareth. Christ, meaning "messiah" or
"anointed," designates one who had received a spiritual quickening from God,
while Jesus is the name of the personality. To the metaphysical Christian--that
is, to him who studies the spiritual man--Christ is the name of the supermind
and Jesus is the name of the personal consciousness. The spiritual man is God's
Son; the personal man is man's son. In the unregenerate God's Son is a mere
potentiality. But in those who have begun the regenerative process Jesus, the
Son of man, is in a state of becoming the Son of God; that is, man is being born
again. At the time Jesus told Nicodemus, "Except one be born anew, he cannot see
the kingdom of God," He Himself was undergoing that mysterious unfoldment of the
soul called the "new birth." He promised great power to those who followed Him
in soul development. "Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration . . . shall
sit upon twelve thrones."
The Christ or Son-of-God evolution of man's soul is plainly taught in the New
Testament as the supreme attainment of every man. "For the earnest expectation
of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God."
Without some evidence in us of the Christ man we are little better than
animals. When through faith in the reality of things spiritual we begin soul
evolution there is great rejoicing; "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
Christ existed long before Jesus. It was the Christ Mind in Jesus that
exclaimed, "And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was."
We should clearly understand that the Christ, the spiritual man, spoke often
through Jesus, the natural man; and then again the natural man, Jesus, spoke on
His own account. Spiritual understanding reveals to us when it was that Christ
spoke and when it was that Jesus spoke. We know that Christ, the spiritual man,
could not have experienced death, burial, and resurrection. The experiences were
possible only to the mortal man, who was passing from the natural to the
spiritual plane of consciousness. The Christ was present with Jesus, quickening
and healing His body and finally raising it to the ethereal realm, where He
exists to this day.
As Christ the Son of God became manifest in Jesus so He becomes manifest in
us when we follow Him in the regeneration. "The Spirit of him that raised up
Jesus from the dead . . . shall give life also to your mortal bodies."
But we must have faith in Spirit and through our thinking build it into our
consciousness; then our bodies will be restored to harmony, health, and eternal
life.
Jesus still lives in the spiritual ethers of this world and is in constant
contact with those who raise their thoughts to Him in prayer. The promise was
not an idle one that He would be with those who have faith in Him. "Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. Ye heard how I said to you, I go
away, and I come unto you."
His body disappeared from our fleshly eyes because He raised it to its true
place in the ether; but He can make His presence felt to anyone who looks to Him
for help. "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I
in the midst of them."
If but two persons agree in their prayers and thoughts about Jesus Christ and
His power to help, by sympathetic soul unity He instantly responds. "Again I say
unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven."
Jesus did not go to a faraway heaven, there to abide to the great day of His
"Second Coming." He explained again and again, in language that anyone who has
even a slight understanding of the interrelation of spirit, soul, and body may
comprehend, that He would continue to exist in the etheric realm that He called
"the heavens." He appeared after His crucifixion to five hundred at one time,
and to many others: notably Paul, whom He converted by talking to him out of the
ether. This all confirms His promise "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world."
Paul says that we are all dead or asleep in trespasses and sins and that
Jesus was the "firstfruits of them that are asleep." Physiology teaches that the
body is alive to the degree that the cells are alive; that we are carrying
around many dead cells. Jesus knew how to quicken with new life the cells of His
organism, and He promised that all who follow Him will do likewise.
So both Scripture and science agree that there must be a resurrection of the
body from the dead; that is, the dead substance that our minds have organized
into cells, tissues, flesh, and blood. The all-important task for everyone is
how to get the mastery of the negative life or microbe that is reducing our
bodies to corruption and final dissolution.
Paul says, "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must
put on immortality." Here is a concise statement of where resurrection is to
take place. Other writings of Paul's have seemingly prophesied a great day on
which all the dead are to come forth from their graves, but this would involve
situations complex and contradictory beyond reconciliation. That we have all
lived hundreds, even thousands, of times and have left our bodies in many lands
is being accepted by logical persons everywhere. If our old bodies are to be
resurrected, which of these discarded ones shall we repossess? Chemistry says
that our flesh becomes again the dust of the ground:
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."
Jesus spent whole nights in prayer according to the Gospels, and it is quite
evident that He was resurrecting His body by realizing, as we do in our prayers,
that God was His indwelling life. His affirmation for more life was "I am the
resurrection, and the life." I AM is the spiritual name of Jehovah, the
everliving one. When we affirm, "I am," with our thoughts centered on Spirit, we
quicken the life flow in the body and awaken the sleepy cells. Such affirmations
clear up congested areas of the organism and restore the circulation to its
normal state, health.
A prominent scientist recently stated that man's body is composed of
trillions of cells, every one an electric battery. A battery emits electrical
impulses of various kinds, transformable into light, power, heat. The human body
is undoubtedly the most powerful dynamo in existence for the carrying on of
life. The presiding ego or I AM in each organism determines the particular kind
of impulse that the cells shall radiate. The field of dynamic energy is
limitless. God is Spirit, and Spirit is the very essence of the ether in which
we live, move, and have our being.
Affirmations of health by Christian healers right in the face of sickness
often result in marvelous restorations that are sometimes called miracles of
healing. But when one understands the power of words spoken in spiritual
consciousness the results are in fulfillment of divine law. Jesus stated the
essence of this law when He said, "Whosoever . . . shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it."
Every word has within it the power to make manifest whatever man decrees, but
especially spiritual words have this power. God creates by the power of the
word. "God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Every act of creation
was preceded by "God said." Man, the apex of God's creation, was created in His
image and likeness; that is, exactly like Him in the power of his word to bring
forth what he says.
In order to create as God creates man must have undoubting faith in God-Mind
and the obedience of the creative electrons hidden in the atoms of all
substance. In Hebrews it is written, "By faith we understand that the worlds
have been framed by the word of God." In the 1st chapter of John the Word or
Logos is given as the source of all things, and this Word is said to become
flesh and be glorified as the only-begotten from the Father. "As many as
received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them
that believe on his name." Jesus said that every man would be justified or
condemned by his word. He demonstrated the power of the word of faith in His
mastery of natural laws and in His many marvelous healings.
Although we all get definite results in body and affairs from the words we
utter, those results would be infinitely greater if we understood the power of
words and had undoubting faith in their creative power. Jesus said, "The words
that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."
We all want to be like Jesus, and millions have made and are making Him the
pattern for their life. So among His faithful followers of the past twenty
centuries we should expect to find a world of glorified men and women. Why have
we not brought forth more of the fruits of Spirit that He so generously
promised? The answer is that we have emphasized the negative qualities as
portrayed by the human side of His character. We have sought to imitate Him in
our acts instead of our thoughts and words.
We are now realizing that as a man "thinketh within himself, so is he." The
outer acts are secondary; the primal world of causes is within, and it is to
this inner realm that we must look for the transforming power of man and of the
world about him as well. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Hence
the quick and lawful way to attain health is to put your creative words to work
and bring into swift action the superman Christ.
There can be no logical doubt that an all-wise and all-powerful Creator would
plan perfection for His creations and also endow them with the ability to bring
His plan into manifestation. That is the status of the world and its people. We
are God's ideal conception of His perfect man, and He has given us the power of
thought and word through which to make that ideal manifest.
It is written in John 5:21 (King James Version): "For as the Father raiseth
up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will."
The American Standard Version says that the Father raises up the dead and
gives them life, and that even so the Son gives life to whom He will. To quicken
means to vivify, vitalize, energize, hence to make alive.
Jesus made this assertion of the life-giving power of the Son of God
immediately after He had healed a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been
infirm and helpless for thirty-eight years. Jesus said to him, "Behold, thou art
made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee."
Here Jesus again emphasizes sin as the cause of infirmity. All the ills of
humanity are the effect of broken law, of sin. That word "sin" covers more
ground than we have usually granted it. There are sins of omission and
commission. If we fail to cultivate the consciousness of the indwelling
spiritual life, we commit a sin of omission that eventually devitalizes the
organism. To be continuously healthy we must draw on the one and only source of
life, God. God is Spirit, and Spirit pours its quickening life into mind and
body when we turn our attention to it and make ourself receptive by trusting
Spirit to restore us to harmony and health.
As for all the marvelous works that Jesus did, He never claimed His
personality as their author. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also
doeth in like manner." We all have access to the Son of God (the Christ)
implanted in us by the Father-Mind if we will give it a chance to quicken us
with creative ideas.
Let us remember that in declaring Jesus to be present with us we are placing
ourselves in a thought atmosphere that will help us to quicken our own supermind
or Christ Mind. Jesus raised His mind and body to His supermind level,
permitting a life radiation without crosscurrents or discords of any kind.
He preceded us, and as He said, He had prepared a "place" for us. This
"place" is a spiritual current in the cosmic ether, in which we live, and we can
feel it when we direct our attention to Christ in prayer and meditation. "The
kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."
Jesus called attention to the fact that the creative Mind, which He lovingly
called Father, had provided for the subsistence of the birds and flowers, and
that man was of more value than these; and would it not be reasonable, He
argued, that the Father would also provide for man? His logic is unanswerable,
and we must all admit that judging from our human ideas about providing for our
children, we should expect God to have done even better for His progeny.
When we understand the nature of the creative Mind--that it is Spirit-mind,
that all things come out of ideas, and that there are unlimited ideas right at
the door of the mind--it dawns on us that God has provided for us beyond our
fondest dreams.
We have been so persistently taught that nature heals that we do not as a
rule give the question of the origin of her healing power any serious thought.
But we should, because our thought calls into action in our consciousness the
mind principle to which we give our attention. If we center our attention on
nature as the healing principle, we stir up natural activities that are
secondary to the one cause of all action, that is, infinite Mind. But it is our
privilege as creations of supreme Mind to bring into action all its forces,
primary and secondary. By our thought and the mighty mind energy back of thought
we can stir to action all the powers of Being and get the results of their
concentrated healing currents instead of the weakened, segregated seepage from
one.
Just here is a good opportunity to urge Truth students to shape their
spiritual unfoldment on one system of development instead of chasing after every
spectacular scheme that pops up. All signs both spiritual and secular point to
Jesus Christ as the appointed head of our race. Through Him we have received a
philosophy of life that has been tested in the past, that is now being tested as
never before, and that is proving to have no peer as a revealer of Truth and as
a remedy for all the ills of humanity.
This being obvious and so many of us having received special revelations
confirming it, why should we feel the lack of another or listen to the many "Lo,
there! Lo, here!" proclamations of those who discern superficial things only?
Concentrate your I AM attention on God as the one and only supreme Spirit and
Jesus Christ as the Son of God through whom we all have access to the Father.
Then you will lift your consciousness into a sphere of spiritual clarity and
power superior to anything in the heavens above or the earth beneath.
Certain persons called "masters" have forged ahead of the race in their
understanding and use of some of the powers of mind and have in personal egotism
set up little kingdoms and put themselves on thrones.
These so-called "masters" and members of occult brotherhoods are attracting
susceptible minds away from the "straight and narrow path" and leading them to
believe that there is a short cut into the kingdom. Jesus described the
situation forcibly and clearly in Matthew 24:24:
"For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show
great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."
Read the whole 24th chapter of Matthew. In it Jesus describes in symbols and
facts what is taking place today in all parts of the world. It may be argued
that these conditions have been present in every generation, and so they have;
but never have so many of the signs stood out so forcibly as now. All this
indicates the end of a world dispensation, a climax in race development. The end
of the world of matter came with the discovery that the atom is electrical, and
all the things that revolved about that material supposition are coming to an
end with it. This means the end of our old ideas that God is a big man sitting
on a throne in a heaven with streets of shining gold, with Jesus at His right
hand writing in the book of life, as well as the end also of our ideas of Satan
and his fiery hell, of the divine right of kings and the prestige of royalty and
other established institutions. These crude ideas about God and man having lost
the sustaining thoughts of the race, old religions and governments dissolve and
the world seems a chaos. However the wise see in all this the passing away of
old ideas and old things to make room for the new. "Behold, I make all things
new."
The only safety from chaos is unity with God and His Son Jesus Christ, the
head of every man. If we are not anchored to this supreme and immovable reality,
we shall be exposed to the storms of mortal thought and shipwrecked on the rocks
of materiality. "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
Jesus taught that His mission was to establish the kingdom of heaven on
earth. The first step in His great work was the awakening of men to certain
fundamental truths of being. He taught the power of mind, thoughts, words. He
cast out the demons (errors) and healed the sick with a word. He planted the
seed thoughts in our race mind that will, when properly used, grow into the
kingdom of the heavens here on earth. But peace, harmony, and love must first be
planted in the minds of men.
Jesus gave us the consciousness of peace. "My peace I give unto you." The
mind of peace precedes bodily healing. Cast out enmity and anger and affirm the
peace of Jesus Christ, and your healing will be swift and sure.
